Statement: Facebook Testing Subscriptions in Instant Articles

The future of quality journalism requires that we find new and better ways to provide economic returns to news publishers. We view Facebook’s announcement today – as with the recent announcements by Google regarding support for subscription models – as a positive one and we strongly support any and all experiments to increase reader engagement and subscriptions. However, these initiatives must still demonstrate that they can effectively stimulate income flowing back to the publishers. We look forward to seeing the results of the testing and to further support by Facebook of high-quality journalism via its Facebook Journalism Project and other means.

David Chavern serves as President & CEO of the News Media Alliance. Chavern has built a career spanning 30 years in executive strategic and operational roles, and most recently completed a decade-long tenure at the United States Chamber of Commerce.